Sapporo woman binned brother’s remains: police

A Sapporo woman who for years shared the same house with her younger brother, a shut-in, tried to dispose of his mummified corpse with household rubbish when she finally realized he was dead, police said Wednesday.

The woman, 49, said she discovered the desiccated cadaver of Masao Tadano as she and a younger sister tried to move away in November, a police officer said, adding that she dismembered the corpse, put the remains in plastic garbage bags and left them at the house when she and her sister moved out.

An autopsy showed that Tadano, who would have been 48 at the time his remains were discarded, had been dead for 1½ to three years, the police said, adding that the cause of death was unknown. The body reportedly had no external injuries.

Tadano lived with his two sisters in an old house, but confined himself to his room and had not communicated with his family since around 2010, the police said.

The dismembered remains were discovered by demolition workers in a number of plastic bags that had been left with household rubbish when the family moved out, they added.

The woman, whose case was sent straight to prosecutors without her being arrested, told police she “did not want to be criticized and thought it would be gotten rid of in the trash,” she was quoted as saying by an investigator.

Someone who lives in a country where funeral costs more than that house?

Coal Miki-Restall

A 49 year old woman in Hokkaido, apparently. Some years back a mate shared a house with about 5 other people (none of whom had known each other prior to moving in). One of them was a shut in who barely left his room, and I think he’d been dead for a couple of weeks before anybody noticed.

http://hystericallyassertive.blogspot.com/ Scott

Well, Jeffrey Dahmer did, but it was for more than 1-3 years. Had he been a dishonest person, he wouldn’t have told the investigator that he came back for it, crushed up the bones and scattered the pieces in an area in the woods. And that’s not including the 11 he kept around in one form or another for the final 2 years of his crime spree.

I’ve heard of stories like this, though – they might have kept the body without having a funeral to continue collecting any kind of disability money or something like that the person was receiving (as if they were still alive, forging the checks). She has to be a liar because the place would have smelled beyond death in the summer months.

http://twitter.com/GraemeGlen2141 Graeme Glen

Funerals can be as cheap or as expensive as you like in Japan. Poor people die here as well. In fact funerals are free if paid for by the state in circumstances of poverty. Which makes sense as you’d have the streets littered with the corpses of the poor. Which we do!!